Not sure that’s borne out, though his gist is along those lines.
> It’s hard to say whether he’s going to go after the rest of Ukraine because—I don’t mean to nitpick here but—that implies that he wants to conquer all of Ukraine, and then he will turn to the Baltic states, and his aim is to create a greater Russia or the reincarnation of the Soviet Union. I don’t see evidence at this point that that is true.
Putin may be simply testing what can be done in a deliberate fashion. Armies need wars to fight in order to stay in shape. He got Crimea pretty easily, so like a cat that got a first piece off the table he might be seeing how big a piece he can manage. We don’t know how much of Putin’s imagery is literal and how much is to just set a tone and narrative for what he does do.
In 2014 it did seem a bit over-the-top to suggest that Ukraine should join NATO to me. The analogy of Mexico joining the Warsaw Pact seems apt. Ukraine has been free all along to say “we like elections, but no thank you to NATO” knowing how Russia sees things. We’ll see how this plays out. This may just be the opening gambit in a multi-round game for the next several years.